“It’s time to switch” is how the Volkswagen Group’s head honcho Herbert Diess ended a rather juicy post on his personal LinkedIn account. Citing an analysis made by German-language biweekly automobile enthusiast magazine Autozeitung, the 62-year-old executive argues you’re better off buying one of the company’s EVs instead of the current crop of vehicles powered by combustion engines that VW and the rest of the brands from the Group are selling.
Taking into account all of the factors regarding buying and maintaining a car, Autozeitung reached the conclusion it costs about 30 percent more per kilometer to own a Volkswagen Tiguan compared to the fully electric ID.4. It’s even more expensive to run an Audi Q5 compared to the Q4 E-Tron, with the former generating approximately 40 percent additional costs per kilometer.
The difference is downright huge between the Skoda Kodiaq and the zero-emissions Enyaq iV as the SUV powered by a combustion engine has around 50 percent higher costs per kilometer than the Czech brand’s first SUV without a gasoline or diesel unit.
As you might have figured out by now, all three EVs mentioned by Diess are based on the MEB platform, which the VW Group is rolling out across many of its brands. As for the ICE cars, all of them had diesel engines, with the Audi and Skoda featuring an all-wheel-drive layout.
It is worth noting the analysis conducted by Autozeitung factors in the much higher incentives applicable to new electric vehicles, which are different (or inexistent) around the world and will likely decrease with time. There’s also the issue with range, which although has significantly increased with the latest wave of EVs, gasoline- and diesel-fueled cars are still much better in that regard.
In order for EVs to be widely accepted, pricing has to substantially come down and improvements have to be made in terms of battery tech to finally make range anxiety a thing of the past.
Diess’ message is pretty clear – the Volkswagen Group is largely abandoning the focus on combustion engines by going all-in on EVs in terms of investments. The ol’ ICE still has some years left in it, but the writing is on the wall for conventional gasoline and diesel engines.
Source: Herbert Diess / LinkedIn
